Author Topic: Any vintage calculator collectors here?  (Read 27968 times)
TheUniversalDave1
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #75 on: December 14, 2014, 09:01:13 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Maybe I'll write the information down and play it in my teacher's aid class tomorrow.  :P
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #76 on: December 14, 2014, 10:06:24 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
I started the program and the first thing that comes up is -50.0500. What does that mean?

EDIT-I reread your description, now I feel stupid.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2014, 10:10:33 PM by TheUniversalDave1 » Logged
themaritimegirl
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #77 on: December 14, 2014, 10:14:02 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
It means it works.  ;D
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TheUniversalDave1
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #78 on: December 14, 2014, 10:20:31 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Well I got the program in just fine, but I screwed up the game...
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #79 on: December 14, 2014, 10:33:25 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Yeah, it took me a couple of tries before I got the hang of it. I find that a good strategy is to wait until you get (not too) close before you start burning fuel. My best round so far is landing with a velocity of 0 with 14 units of fuel to spare.
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #80 on: December 14, 2014, 10:51:06 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Maybe I'll show it to my physics teacher and see what he thinks about it. I'm not in physics yet, just lousy physical science again.
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #81 on: December 14, 2014, 11:21:15 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Just remember you need to re-enter the initial values every time you run the program. You don't need to re-enter the program though - the 12C has continuous memory, so it remembers everything while it's turned off.

I did make a short video of playing it on the 33E in case you couldn't figure it out, but you already did by the time I got it up. Here it is, anyway:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MDQxAhmT6o&feature=youtu.be

Heh, it's been like, 3 weeks since I made a YouTube video, so I oughtta make this video public and let my viewers guess what it is and what it's doing until I finally make the video of that calculator.  :P
« Last Edit: December 14, 2014, 11:33:47 PM by TheMaritimeMan » Logged

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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #82 on: December 14, 2014, 11:57:41 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Yeah, it would be cool to see all their guesses...
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #83 on: December 19, 2014, 12:29:17 AM » Author: themaritimegirl
Did something rather hilarious earlier today. I haven't even turned on my TI-30 in about a year, so I threw a battery in it to see what kind of shape it was in. MOST of the keys didn't respond, at all. You could pound them forever and not get a single response. So I decided to, for the first time, open it up and see just what kind of shape the keypad is in, and if I can do anything about it.

Aside from a sheet of thin foam between the buttons and the keypad itself that had disintegrated, everything looked normal. Oddly enough, the keypad appears to be the exact same design as used in the TI-1025, yet my TI-1025's keypad works (worked  ::) ) as perfect as could be. As far as I know the TI-1025 doesn't suffer keypad issues, so I really don't know. Both calculators were on the market simultaneously, so I can't imagine the internal keypad design being different between them.

Anyway, there are some holes on the underside of the keypad, so I tried blowing compressed air through them. Nothing. So, I decided I had nothing more to lose, so I tore the whole keypad apart, basically destroying it. The first picture is of the calculator before I tore the keypad to bits. You can see where I started to do so at the bottom-left of the keypad.

The keypad design is pretty simple. There's multiple stiff wires running vertically down the keypad base. Laid on top of them are the buttons themselves, which are just metal circular discs which snap downward when you press them. The metal discs are arranged in strips, so there's 8 strips of 5 discs each for the 8 rows of buttons on the calculator. Each strip is soldered to one of the vertical wires, and when you press a button, the disc contacts another wire, thus shorting the two wires. The discs are held in place by the black plastic sheet, which is glued to the base of the keypad.

I tore the plastic sheet off. All the strips of metal discs came off with it, tearing from their solder points. You can see the entire parted keypad in the second picture. I don't know why so many buttons weren't responding, but I found the problem for at least some of them - some of the vertical wires actually had green corrosion on them. This thing apparently suffered a leaking battery at some point in its life. Odd because it shows no other signs of ever having been so. Some of the metal discs had green corrosion, as well. I sanded everything clean.

Obviously I tore the metal disc strips from their solder points, and the black plastic sheet holding them wasn't going to stick on like it originally did. So, I stuck everything back together with tape. And there are small holes on the underside of the keypad base where the disc strips solder to the vertical wires, so I did the crappiest solder job in history, soldering the strips back on the wires by basically melting solder onto my iron and shoving it in the holes. In the end, I did get everything soldered and put back together. But my God, you wouldn't believe what it looks like. The top side of the keypad is a torn-up plastic sheet covered in tape, and the underside is melted plastic with blobs of solder everywhere. It looks horrible.

The hilarious part? Not only does the keypad work after that, but it actually works better than it ever did. The only key that doesn't work absolutely perfect is the 9 key, which you have to press harder than normal. I couldn't believe it. I forgot to take a picture of the keypad before I re-assembled the calculator, but I'll do that sometime.
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #84 on: December 25, 2014, 08:38:08 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Merry Christmas! I got the Canon Multi 8 today. What a sweet calculator. Perfect shape, and works perfect. Very well designed, keyboard and all. Something I didn't know, when you switch to Single mode, it even shuts off the cathode of the upper line of the display to save battery life!
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #85 on: December 25, 2014, 11:53:31 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Sweet! Merry Christmas to you, my friend!  :D
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #86 on: February 16, 2015, 02:54:14 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Well the batteries in the HP 12C are completely dead. And I haven't even used it at all!
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #87 on: February 16, 2015, 02:58:39 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Are those the new batteries you bought?  :o
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #88 on: February 16, 2015, 03:00:36 PM » Author: TheUniversalDave1
Oh yeah. They were genuine Radio-$h!t batteries, too!
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Re: Any vintage calculator collectors here? « Reply #89 on: February 16, 2015, 03:05:59 PM » Author: themaritimegirl
Wow. Maybe it's just a bad connection - try moving them around a bit inside the battery compartment. If they really are dead, that's really strange. The calculator was working with batteries that were who knows how old when you got it, so there shouldn't be a parasitic current draw within the calculator, unless it's occurred only recently, but I don't think that's likely.

Otherwise, maybe one particular battery just died. What are the voltages of each one?
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